It must have been medicine, for Billy’s foot, so the doctor claimed, grew well in a wonderfully rapid manner from this time on. And the time passed so quickly at the bird window that really the days went by before Billy had time to be lonely. The birds were great company. The same ones came from day to day—the little Miss Chickadees were the tamest. They really learned to take shelled peanuts from Billy’s fingers and to sit upon his warm hand while they ate. Brother Woodpecker and his wife came early. They needed no alarm clock to wake them. Billy heard the knock—knock before he was in his chair of a morning. Then the curious little nuthatches,—those strange little gray birds with the funny noise that sounded like quack, quack—they came, too, regularly. In snow and sleet and rain and sun, Billy had his bird friends. He had the doctor’s little girl, too, some days. They sat by the window and played games while she told him all she knew about birds. Then, when his foot got so well that the doctor let him go out, Billy’s first trip was to the drugstore to buy more sunflower seed with her.
Everybody came to see Billy’s window and the fame of it spread far and wide. Billy always declared afterwards that it had almost been worth the red lollypop accident, but it was the penny bank that really did it all, you know!
Angelina’s Valentine
THE FEBRUARY SURPRISE
Of course, anybody might guess that the valentine card came in the first pocket of the Surprise Book in February. It did! It was a red heart cut from bright red paper and it had a verse upon it, too. The story for February was a valentine story, too. It was in a pocket that was sealed with an embossed rose. The writing said: